Are the Feds Rigging the Vote in Alabama?
August 3, 2006
Editorial
Strong-Arming the Vote
President Bush’s Justice Department has been criticized for letting
partisanship guide its work on voting and elections. And party politics
certainly appears to have been a driving force in a legal maneuver it just
pulled off in Alabama, where it persuaded a federal judge to take important
election powers away from the Democratic secretary of state and give them to
a Republican governor. The Justice Department says it is trying to enforce
the election law, but that is unconvincing. There are plenty of ways to
enforce the law without creating the impression that it is tilting the
electoral landscape in favor of Republicans.
Alabama is one of many states that have been late in meeting a federal
requirement to create a computerized statewide list of voters. Secretary of
State Nancy Worley says the delay is due to factors outside her control. Her
critics disagree. But whatever the reason, the Justice Department has every
right to try to speed things along. The trouble is, rather than work with
Ms. Worley to get the job done, it decided to go to court to take away her
authority and hand it to Gov. Bob Riley.
Sadly, a federal judge agreed yesterday to do just that, in a one-sided
proceeding that felt a lot like a kangaroo court. The Justice Department and
the Alabama attorney general, Troy King, both argued that Governor Riley
should control the voter database. Mr. King, a Republican, was appointed to
his job by Governor Riley after serving as his legal adviser, and when Ms.
Worley realized that Mr. King would not represent her interests, she asked
him to let her hire a lawyer to argue her side. He refused. The Alabama
Democratic Party tried to intervene in the case, so it could argue against
giving control of the voter rolls to the governor. The judge, who was
recently named to the bench by President Bush, would not let the Democrats
in.
The Justice Department’s request to shift Ms. Worley’s powers to Governor
Riley is extraordinary. Normally, the government would seek an order telling
a state official what to do, or it would ask to have a nonpartisan person
appointed as a special master. And the Justice Department’s aggressive
stance stands in stark contrast to the forgiving approach it has taken to
Republican secretaries of state. After Katherine Harris removed eligible
voters from the rolls in Florida in 2000, and Kenneth Blackwell tried to
block eligible people from registering in Ohio in 2004, the Justice
Department made no effort to limit their powers.
Controlling the voting rolls can yield important advantages, as Ms. Harris
proved in 2000. The Justice Department’s actions in Alabama appear to be
less about enforcing the law than about wresting control of the voter rolls
from the opposition party, and making a Democratic secretary of state who is
up for re-election in a few months look bad.
It would not be the first time the Bush Justice Department seemed to play
party politics with elections. Political appointees approved the
pro-Republican Congressional redistricting plan in Texas and a voter ID law
in Georgia, despite objections from staff lawyers that the plans violated
the Voting Rights Act.
The Justice Department has enormous power over state elections. It is
important that this power be used in a way that appears - and is -
nonpartisan. Undercutting a Democratic secretary of state, and taking the
extraordinary step of handing her powers to a Republican governor, meets
neither test. The Justice Department is giving the impression that it is
less concerned that elections be lawful and fair than that they come out a
particular way.